An incredibly addictive read

Twists...conspire to keep you reading until the final page

A work of genius

It's a rewardingly complex and emotional story told in highly imaginative prose. The worlds Lanagan creates are so rich and multi-layered it's easy to get lost in the book's 500 pages, never wanting to leave

Ambitious and difficult with multi-layered prose that will work its way into your very soul

A genre-smashing novel

It grips the reader from the outset, and as it is read, layer upon layer of psychological and intertextual meaning can be unpicked and analyzed. It is certainly an immensely powerful contribution to both fairy-tale and fantasy genres

Brave and bold

This is an astonishing and beautifully written novel with very strong cross-over appeal

To condemn it as merely wilful taboo-breaking is to miss the humanity in what is one of the strangest and most moving works of children's literature I have read in years . . . Look beyond the shocking scenes and this is a novel that explores the most profound human emotions with a clear gaze; it made me weep like a child at the end

Enthralling, at times unsettling but always richly imagined

This is a multi-layered novel which requires and deserves attentive reading, regardless of the reader's age; it is unlikely, though, to have much appeal for the censorious adult or for anyone under 16

A complex, challenging novel... there's strong language throughout. At times the tone is chill and distancing but it edges gradually towards a final satisfying sense of empathy and resolution

Lauren Kate really knows how to keep a reader engaged. A breathtaking read. 5/5

As lyrically succulent as Chocolat and Blackberry Wine, this book probes darker corners of loss, enmity and betrayal

Hugely enjoyable

Vastly enjoyable, utterly gripping

A dark, gripping tale of how smell leads to tragedy and murder. Harris's vividly sensual account of a nine-year-olds loves, loyalties and misunderstandings is a powerful and haunting story of childhood betrayal

Five Quarters of the Orange completes a hat-trick of food-titled tales with a riveting story about a young girl brought up in occupied France who's now an old woman harbouring a terrible secret. Harris is light-years ahead of her contemporaries. She teases you with snippets of a bigger story, gently pulling you in with her vivid descriptions of rural France until you can actually smell the oranges. Read it

Beautifully told, it's a haunting and tantalizing tale that stays with you long after turning the last page

The luscious prose, abounding in culinary metaphors and similes, which made Chocolat so readable, is once more in evidence ... a satisfying page-turner

This shape-shifting drama switches easily between Occupied France and the present day. Recipes for luscious meals and homebrewed liqueurs interlace a storyline that spoons suspense and black humour into the blender in equal measure

Harris is an acute observer of the lush French countryside, and her descriptions of it are a delight ... A luscious feast of a book

Joanne Harris's rather brilliant Five Quarters of the Orange is a fascinating page-turner with a compelling climax ... This is an absolutely remarkable book that deserves to be read over and over again

Harris' love affair with food and France continues. Savour it

Harris evocatively balances the young Framboise's perspectives on life against grown-up truths with compelling, zestful flair

The dreamy and almost fair-tale narrative remains undisturbed by the spectre of the Occupation, as Harris avoids moral or historical themes, to ponder on the internal and social turmoil of the protagonists ... Harris seduces her readers with culinary delights, through suggestive textures and smells which indulge the senses

Harris has a gift for injecting magic into the everyday ... She is an old-fashioned writer in the finest sense, believing in a strong narrative, fully rounded characters, a complex plot, even a moral

Gripping ... Harris is on assured form